A CHALLENGE

Welcome to Albert Camus Week at Goat Rope. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier posts.

El Cabrero just noticed by accident that 2007 is the 50th anniversary of Camus' Nobel Prize for literature.

Here's what he had to say about the challenges of his generation (which kinda sounds like the challenges of ours):

Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself. Heir to a corrupt history, in which are mingled fallen revolutions, technology gone mad, dead gods, and worn-out ideologies, where mediocre powers can destroy all yet no longer know how to convince, where intelligence has debased itself to become the servant of hatred and oppression, this generation starting from its own negations has had to re-establish, both within and without, a little of that which constitutes the dignity of life and death.

Sound familiar? There's more:

In a world threatened by disintegration, in which our grand inquisitors run the risk of establishing forever the kingdom of death, it knows that it should, in an insane race against the clock, restore among the nations a peace that is not servitude, reconcile anew labour and culture, and remake with all men the Ark of the Covenant.

He believed, rightly or wrongly, that some people from his generation were up for the challenge:

It is not certain that this generation will ever be able to accomplish this immense task, but already it is rising everywhere in the world to the double challenge of truth and liberty and, if necessary, knows how to die for it without hate. Wherever it is found, it deserves to be saluted and encouraged, particularly where it is sacrificing itself. In any event, certain of your complete approval, it is to this generation that I should like to pass on the honour that you have just given me.

More to the point, are we?

SPEAKING OF (NOT) PREVENTING THE WORLD FROM DESTROYING ITSELF, click here.

CHIP UPDATE. The House passed a stopgap spending measure to keep funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program at its current rate through Nov.

DOES GLOBALIZATION MAKE FOR WAR OR PEACE? According to this analysis, it depends...

BANG FOR THEIR BUCK. It looks like the folks at Blackwater are a little trigger happy even by military contractor standards.

MEGAN WILLIAMS CASE. This is the latest legal news as of now. There have been rumors of outside groups coming to Logan County to protest but these have not materialized so far. Meanwhile, local residents have been discussing organizing some kind of positive community event in response to these crimes. More on that as plans develop.

TALKING SENSE. The Chicken Littles of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia are always talking about how we rank at or near the bottom in this or that (often spurious) business ranking list. This post a while back from abetterWestVirginia.com is a good response.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED